


Puppet

by seazu



Series: That's Life [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Army, Army, M/M, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 01:31:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10503648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seazu/pseuds/seazu
Summary: Army AU -- Mickey is given the choice between Prison and enlisting. During Basic he realises he's made a mistake and starts to plot a way to get discharged. That's when Ian Gallagher grasps his attention.Part of the 'That's Life' series -- a handful of unrelated AUs based on the song by Frank Sinatra.(You don't have to have read any of the others to read this one)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an AU I wrote with my RP Partner https://archiveofourown.org/users/officialstarsandgutters -- and part of an AU series based on the Song That's Life by Frank Sinatra.

A life rotting in Prison or a few years service in the U.S. Army. If he had the time he’d probably have agonised over it, but standing in front of a judge in chains, all he could think of was relative freedom and a license to kill, with the bonus of a free gun and less chance of getting ass-raped in the showers. It was posed like a choice but even Mickey knew there really was none, it was the choice given to every other young criminal in the country at the time. The war effort in Nam was always in need of fresh blood to replace that spilled. Fuck it, why not?

~

Basic training was not fun. Mickey didn’t run. Not unless he was being chased, but here it was a different story. It wasn’t like they were given months of it, it was a few weeks and then they would be shipped off. Most of the other guys there were basically fucking children, not that Mickey was much older, but he felt it. Children and criminals, that was what they were relying on now. Honestly, Mickey didn’t give a shit about another war. It was all bullshit politicians swinging their dicks around and fighting to see whose was biggest. When it came to shooting dudes though,  _ that  _ caught his interest. 

Except no one had really brought to his attention the fact that you only got to shoot dudes after you woke up at ass o’clock every morning and ran and ran under the orders of some fuckin’ cock who wasn’t good enough to serve the country abroad and instead had to stand here and train kids who’d probably die as soon as they were dropped over. They must do with how quickly boys are shipped out. But two weeks in and he hadn’t even fucking touched a rifle, the fuck was that about? It was all fitness and marching, repeating songs back, listening about how Charlie was going to rim them all if they made even one mistake. And he’d lost count of how many times the Drill Sergeant had chewed him for his attitude. 

It wasn’t exactly what he’d envisioned. Cleaning the barracks relentlessly, hearing a yell and having half a minute to assemble into a line, even if everyone was dead asleep. Queuing up to get food and having maybe five minutes to eat, but abandoning everything as soon as a whistle sounded. He felt like a fucking dog. Running up hills every morning with full gear and feeling sweat pour off of him like it was water, soaking into his uniform, and then it would rain and by the time he got back to the barracks to get yelled at again he stunk like the mold in his room back in South Side. 

Everything they did was designed to break them down to nothing, dissolve egos and allow the Army to build them back up into perfect little puppets. Mickey was miserable, he was losing his resolve. Losing his ability to tilt his chin up in defiance, or flip someone off, or snap back with a witty retort. He was losing all sense of self and he knew he couldn’t do it anymore. But his options were limited. He knew Basic would only last about eight weeks and then he heard something about advanced training or individual or something. A lot of fucking acronyms that he didn’t want to focus on or dissect because that would just mean he was set on sticking around to find out. And he wasn’t. So it was either injure himself gravely or… the more plausible idea he’d heard guys discuss in jest once or twice -- get caught being a homo. Because apparently they’d take anyone here, unless you suck cock, then you’re not man enough to fuck up the enemy.

It seemed preferable to blowing off his leg, but he reckoned an injury would take less time than plotting to get caught blowing an Officer. He eyed the tool shed for a long time before he took off toward it, slipping inside while no one was looking. There wasn’t exactly a wealth of choices for him, did he want to hack off his leg with an axe? Or perhaps he fancied losing a few fingers or toes to shears? Maybe if he was feeling particularly risky he could try shoving one of the cultivators into his leg and see if he could hit something important.

“Fuck fuck,” he suddenly found himself trying to weigh up his options and for a moment being here didn’t seem so bad. But fuck if he was going to pussy out. Was it better to lose something here or lose his life to some gook over there? He didn’t want to get shot and bleed out alone in a jungle. No fucking way. He swallowed as he picked up the shears and sucked in air a few times to pump himself up, “come on man, you got this. Just do it, just do it.” He wedged his index and middle fingers in against the open blades and got a first hand look at how sharp it was, relatively unused. Something in his favor. He swallowed and moved over to a small bench so he could prop the shears against it and make it easier to close them, but as he did it nipped the soft skin between his fingers and his hand immediately shot away from the pain, and he yipped a sharp, “ _ fuck _ .” 

He sighed and threw the shears aside, sucking at the tiny cut before he muttered, “fuckin’ pussy.” It was pretty obvious he wasn’t going to be able to do that any time soon. And even more obvious the only thing that would keep him alive in Nam would be the fact he wouldn’t want to be anywhere near a stray bullet. 

~

Honestly, one of the harder things for him here was the rationing. When they were in the field training, they’d have C-rations, which honestly weren’t so bad. A tin of what he assumed was meat and potatoes or something similar; then a tin of fruit; a bar of cheap chocolate and a pack of cigarettes. Well a pack, with four cigarettes. On a good day back home that’d last him half the day. Here, he had to make it stretch, or trade. Most guys wouldn’t trade him cigarettes for fruit, even if they didn’t smoke, because they knew _someone_ would give them chocolate. Which was far more valuable because the fruit was soft and just tasted old and a little soggy. But the chocolate was chocolate, and you can’t really go to wrong with that. Mickey’s addiction told him cigarettes were better worth it, but his sweet tooth screamed for the chocolate. Every day he faced the dilemma again, and every day he came away feeling like he made the wrong decision. 

Of course, realistically the worst decision he’s made recently was the one to enlist, the added heartbreak of chocolate or cigarettes every day does nothing to help his mood. 

~

He decided it should be someone of authority. If he just hit on them, maybe dropped to his knees and licked his lips, that should do it. It was too risky to try and be caught banging another Private(‘s Privates,  _ ba dumdum tssh _ ) because who’s to say that dude won’t just try to fucking kill him and that would make all of this irrelevant. The question was who. It wasn’t like there were a spectacular amount of options, he sure as shit wasn’t going to do it with his Drill Sergeant, that asshole would probably ram his cock down Mickey’s throat just to prove a point and then make him clean the crawl space under the barracks to drive it home.

No, it had to be someone else. Someone he didn’t really know. But someone dedicated enough to their job here that they would feel obliged to report him. 

He had seen Gallagher milling about the Fort a few times over the last few weeks, but hadn’t spared him more than a glance. It was while he was sitting trying to shovel as much food in him as possible at breakfast while looking around at the other tables, reserved for those of rank that he spotted him. Sitting there with his back so straight it could have been in a brace. Everything about his uniform looked perfect, probably all measured within a millimetre of regulations. He was an officer, looked like he was probably a few years older than him, but maybe not. Maybe he just started here so long ago that he aged twice as fast with the demands of the job. He seemed like a pretty prime target, and even though Mickey obviously wasn’t here to start something, he was pretty easy on the eyes, too. Would make it simpler to get the job done -- if he had to -- than some red-faced condom-headed fucker.

Mickey finished up quickly and rose to leave his shit back to the kitchen staff. On his way out he took a breath and slapped on a face to disguise any uncertainty, sitting next to Gallagher and tilting his chin up, showing off a smug smirk. The table was a whole lot less crowded than the rows dedicated to Privates. Shoulder-to-shoulder, elbowing each other as they ate, packed up like sardines. 

“This section is restricted, Private,” Ian warned, looked otherwise unaffected by the expression Mickey had. “Remove yourself.”

“Sorry,  _ Sir, _ ” Mickey said, in a way that managed to show how little respect he held when using the word. “Thought I saw you looking at me across the room, came over to introduce myself.”

“As far as I’m concerned your name is ‘Private’--”

“Milkovich,” he interjected. “Mickey Milkovich -- better you know my name so you know what to moan.” He did it before he could think too much about it, placed his hand on Gallagher’s thigh under the table and slid it upwards firmly to press against the bulge there. 

He looked livid, straightening up further (somehow), and grabbed Mickey’s wrist to remove it, “try that again and you’ll lose this.”

So Mickey didn’t try  _ that  _ again, this time he moved in to kiss him. But he barely got a few centimetres closer before Ian twisted his arm sharply and moved them both so it was jerked painfully behind his back, forcing him onto his knees. “I don’t know what your game is, Milkovich, but I’ll be reporting you to you CO for insolence. Learn some respect,” he let go and Mickey fell forward rubbing his shoulder and turning his head enough to see the fury in Gallagher’s expression. A heat pooled in the pit of his stomach and somehow the resulting expression only made him look more enraged, but in a sort of impressively collected way as opposed to his CO who always looked more red in the face and managed to spit every word. “Drop and give me forty, sound off.”

The room had fallen into a silence as Ian turned back to his breakfast, glancing over the morning paper and drinking his coffee as if nothing had happened while Mickey ignored the throbbing pain in his shoulder and started doing press-ups, “one, two, three--”

“Three, what?” Gallagher interjected after a beat. 

Mickey screwed up his face like it took every fibre of his being to not flip him off, “four,  _ sir,  _ five,  _ sir… _ ”

The whistle blew and the other Privates left in seconds before he was able to make it past twenty-five. In less than a minute it was just him and Mickey, still counting off. He’d tucked his newspaper under his arm and tilted his head back to shot the last of his coffee.

“Twenty-six, Sir, you didn’t tell me your- twenty-seven, sir, your name, twenty-eight, sir…”

“Gallagher,” he said, after a pause.

“First name, sir, thirty, sir.” He was out of breath, but it was worth it. He couldn’t look up but he could feel him looming over him. There was something hot about that. Something he’d never really felt. He’d never been overly sexual to the degree he was out looking to bang someone every night, so he never felt pressured to admit to his own sexuality beyond the fact that chicks just didn’t check his boxes. Even if they were an okay substitute when his hand wasn’t doing it for him. But it was still the fucking sixties, even if they were on the way out, and in South Side willing guys were hard to find. Hard to outright ask, too. It was all about looks. So being this forward now was thrilling.

“Ian,” he said, after a long pause. Long enough for Mickey to get to thirty-six.

Mickey just smiled, too out of breath to say more than what he had to. When he got to forty, he stood, arms aching, more so with the idea that he had a whole day of abuse to put them through after this. “That all, sir? I’ll get reemed if I’m late. Which I am.”

Ian took that opportunity to step forward and get in his face, “you may be here because you were forced to, Private, but I’m here because I want to serve my country. Whatever shit you’re trying to pull, leave me out of it.”

“No shit, sir,” Mickey said, trying to look nonplussed as he crossed his arms behind his back in a subtle stretch to roll the tension out of them, “just thought I caught you looking, that’s all,” he tongued at the corner of his mouth, before he wet his lips.

“You’re dismissed, Private.”

“Thank-you,  _ sir. _ ”

~

For the week following, Mickey kept his eyes peeled for Ian. Any time he spotted him, he made sure to make eye-contact. Let it linger across the room, he was definitely not subtle about it either. Checking him out, eye-fucking any time Ian gave in long enough to meet his gaze. It became a fun little distraction for him between the gruelling effort it took learning to be the perfect toy soldier. He was at least, in better shape, and forced to cut back on smoking, which only made him cough more for some reason. 

Every week the company with the cleanest barracks got a pass at the weekend to leave, every week their company failed. It was always the fucking Southerners. Fucking rustic hospitality fuckers. The Yankee bastards he was fucked in with never managed to get their shit together to the same degree. But even without the pass, he took it upon himself to find Ian again. Determined this would be the time, because a scolding for disrespect was not enough. Running fully geared laps in the rain was not enough. He needed out of here. 

He had figured out during the week where Ian’s quarters were, and he slipped out in the night to find them. Letting himself in, and only once he was standing in his room in the dark did it occur to him how fucking psycho murder creepy this shit was. So he flicked on the light instead of just standing over him. Ian awoke with a start, automatically reaching under his pillow for a weapon while he stared wide-eyed at Mickey. 

“What the  _ fuck  _ are you doing, Milkovich.”

“Shit, I  _ know  _ you were making eyes at me this time, sir.”

“Are you kidding, get the fuck out.”

Mickey just smirked and crossed the room to him, wetting his lips again as he walked, “you don’t actually want me to go, sir.”

“Uh, yeah, those were the words that just came out of my mouth, whether you like it or not,” he was sitting up, legs swung off the bed to plant his feet firmly on the floor, and Mickey considered this perfect as he dropped to his knees and put a hand firmly on each thigh, pushing them apart and looking up at him with his best  _ fuck me  _ eyes. 

Ian seemed to swallow and for a second Mickey wondered why he hadn’t forced him away yet. Why, as he glanced down to his underwear, there was a bulge forming. And then it clicked, Ian was gay. He looked back up at him with a hint of surprise, and Ian just stared back with the hottest expression Mickey had ever seen on a man, and without a second thought he was pulling down Ian’s underwear to reveal the cause of said bulge. He kept one hand firmly planted on Ian’s thigh but the other moved to stroke him a few times before taking him into his mouth. Ian made a noise that should have been illegal and it only egged him on.

This was not the plan. This was not what was supposed to happen. He was supposed to come in here, try this and get punched and then discharged. He wasn’t supposed to suck Ian off. He wasn’t supposed to palm at his own throbbing cock and basically get off to the practically pornographic noises Ian was trying to stifle. 

He came when Mickey wasn’t really expecting it and he half choked trying to swallow him down. But once Mickey pulled away, in an impressive show of strength, Ian picked him up from under his arms and threw him onto the bed, leaning over him, pupils blown and lips dark where he’d been biting to kill the noises he was making. He palmed at Mickey’s cock and looked him over, “you got stuff?”

“The fuck am I gonna get  _ stuff  _ out here, man? It’d be easier to get in fucking Prison, shit.”

Ian rolled his eyes, or maybe smirked. Something in between, but Mickey liked it anyway. And he moved down to kiss and lick down Mickey’s neck, pulling off his shirt to nose at his nipple, give it a teasing few licks and bites and continued down, working off his pants and tugging those down with his underwear in one fluid movement. Mickey’s cock bounced free like it was relieved to be unconfined, and a second later, Ian was on him. 

He looked down at him until the image was too much to focus on. It had been a long fucking time since someone was on his dick. And he really didn’t think this would be happening tonight, or he might have jerked off first to make sure he would last longer. This wasn’t even on his radar. Maybe his fantasies, sure, but not in reality. He came in record time and sat there flushed and a little embarrassed as Ian popped off him and dragged a thumb from the corner of his lips to his tongue to lick away a little escaped bit of semen. He was smirking, looking incredibly amused, “seriously?”

“What?” Mickey said, sharply, scrambling up.

“That’s it?”

“It’s been a while.”

“No shit.”

“What, you banging every other Private who comes through here?”

“Not  _ every  _ other Private.”

Mickey looked exasperated. How did he find the one fucking gay officer here. How was that even possible. 

“I thought you knew about me from someone else, maybe. Were you seriously just going on instinct?”

“Yeah,” he said, starting to gather his things. In spite of the embarrassment and the surprise and every other weird thing going on in his head, beneath it all he felt some fucking… connection. And don’t ask him because he’d never admit it aloud, but it turned out the hot officer is pretty okay, and sucks excellent dick. Too good, really, that’s the actual reason he came so fast. Nothing else. 

Ian lounged back up on his bed once Mickey was off it, gathering his stuff and redressing. 

“You don’t wanna cuddle?”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you,  _ sir. _ ”

“ _ Fuck you, sir. _ ”

“You just did.”

Mickey grumbled to himself and turned away to get his boots back on. He could feel Ian’s eyes trace up his ass as he brought his knee towards his chest to lace them up. 

“We should do this again sometime, if you can last a bit longer.”

“I will,” he muttered, walking out without a second glance because he knew if he looked over and saw the way Ian was lying there with his tightly muscled body and ruffled red hair and that air of confidence in how he carried himself, all sprawled out across the bed… he might think twice about the offer to cuddle.

 

~

 

He didn’t sleep that night. Or it didn’t feel like it. It felt like he blinked and then they were being yelled at to get up for roll call.

He got too much time with his own head. After a while the marching songs and the abuse being yelled at him bounced off and he could tune it out, and then he was exerting himself with only the distraction of his own thoughts. That wasn’t good. All he could think about was Ian, and he ain’t never had feelings for a guy, not for no one. But there was a seed planted now, and he couldn’t see past it. Any time he caught himself thinking about Gallagher at all (that rush of red hair, the freckles dusted lightly from exposure to the sun all day, the toned muscles, the wide smirk, that talented fucking mouth), he just pushed himself harder to try and forget. 

~

He managed to convince himself, after a shit-tonne of effort, that he was only lusting after Ian. And the best solution for that was to remove him from his life by seeing the plan through. He knew he could corner Ian now, knew he could convince him to fuck, so why not set them up? It took cigarettes  _ and  _ chocolate to convince another Private to come to Gallagher’s quarters if he wasn’t back in twenty minutes. He said he was pretty sure he’d been called to see him because he was in trouble, so he needed someone to rescue him. With a witness, Ian would either be forced to report him, or they’d both be taken down. That was fine by him. Definitely. He definitely didn't give a shit about Ian Gallagher.

He took his time getting to Ian’s quarters, it was daylight, but they were on rare downtime after training all day. He couldn’t be sure exactly if Ian was free or not, but he had to hope. He knocked on his door and felt some degree of relief when he heard him say, “come in.” He was there, at least. 

When Mickey pushed in, he saw him writing at his desk, a letter home he presumed. He hadn’t written anything since they made him sit down to write a will and a letter home when he first got sent here. He hadn’t anyone to direct it to except his sister, there was probably something sad about that, but he wasn’t going to think about it now. Ian grinned and quirked a brow when he looked up to see Mickey. 

“Wasn’t sure you’d come back,” he said, and when Mickey just shrugged in response, he grinned bigger and stood, “you won’t guess what I found.”

Mickey made sure the door was closed behind him and only pretended to lock it as he circled behind him and toward the bed, watching Ian move to his footlocker as he pulled out a tub of vaseline. Mickey’s eyebrows sailed up his forehead as he looked at that, “will that work?”

Ian shrugged, “I’ve never tried it, but it should. In theory -- you haven’t changed your mind, have you?”

“No.” He spoke a little too quickly and it became frustratingly obvious that he was nervous. It wasn’t something he’d ever done. Any time he picked a guy up, it was a quick fuck of opportunity: a hummer, nothing more. This was new territory. 

“We don’t gotta.”

“No, yeah. Fuck it man, let’s do it.”

Ian snorted like that response was hilarious, and then his expression turned a little serious, “you uh… you’re a bottom, right?”

Well shit, he ain’t done this before but he’s pretty sure that, yeah… he’d probably bottom. Seemed more appealing somehow, and for the sake of his plan working, he’d do whatever he had to. “Uh, yeah.”

Ian nodded, looking him over again, “we really don't gotta do nothing if you don't wanna.”

“Just quit your yammering and fuck me, Gallagher.” 

Ian smirked and started taking his trousers off and Mickey started to do the same. They met by the bed, where Ian started kissing down his neck before he flipped him against the bed, pressing him down before he used the vaseline to slick up his fingers to slide one in, slowly. Knowing Mickey was hesitant and as such maybe new to this, so he was trying to be considerate. “Fuck you're so tight,” he said it in that low fucking tone that drove Mickey crazy, curling his finger and working him open. Mickey sighed against the sheets when Ian slid in a second finger and started to scissor and properly stretch him. The first time he brushed his prostate, Mickey’s eyes went wide and he gasped, rolling his hips against it. Ian seemed to focus on that to make the stretch easier for him. Then when he was comfortably up to three fingers, Ian pulled out and made Mickey feel more empty than he ever had. 

He looked behind him to see what Ian was doing, so laced with desire that all thoughts of his plan were out the window. Ian consumed him, his scent and heat and those looks. _God damn._

The command in his voice when he said, “get on your knees and suck my cock, Private,” left no choice in the matter for him. He slipped off the bed obediently and sucked him off until he was hard enough that Ian told him, “stop, get on your hands and knees,” and he didn't even try to argue as he posed himself up on the bed.

He was beyond eager. All he could think about was Ian fucking him, how his cock would feel thrusting into him, the sound of him grunting as he slammed his hips against his ass. He needed him, none more so than when Ian lined his cock up against Mickey’s ass, slick and ready, and pressed his hand against the dip of his back and said, “relax, and breathe,” and he started to push in.

Then he couldn’t really compute what happened next, he fully expected Ian to be saying the words, “what the hell?” but it wasn’t his voice or from the right direction. He looked up with gritted teeth and a frown and saw Private Anderson by the door, pale in the face as he looked at them both. There was no talking your way out of this but Mickey felt Ian jerk away from him, heard him say, “oh… Private Anderson… Hello.”

Mickey was suddenly in a hurry to grab his clothes, get changed, his erection was suddenly close to death and he was in a panic. Everything came crashing down and he realised he had made  _ yet another  _ mistake. Great. Something to add to the endless list of sins, to be read to him for an eternity after death. 

He glanced up at Anderson a few times, trying to gauge his reaction, suddenly wanting more than anything for him to keep his fucking mouth shut. 

“What is… what’s going on?” the thick Southern accent makes it somehow comical. The kind that makes you think of Foghorn Leghorn, the kind you didn’t think any actual human had. But here he was, living breathing proof, even if in this moment, Mickey wished he wasn’t. 

“Now, that’s a bit of a stupid question, isn’t it, Private?” Ian said, staring at him for a few long moments before he moved to pick up his underwear and start getting dressed again. 

Mickey snapped his head around to Ian, eyebrows nearly meeting his hairline they’d raised so high. The fuck was this guy doing? 

Anderson was pressing back out the door, he looked completely mortified, “I… I gotta go tell someone.”

“Nah,” Ian said, sounding entirely nonplussed, and looking far too confident for someone half dressed. “You ain’t gonna do a silly thing like that. Not when you’ve been a voyeur. Oh yes, Private Anderson, he loves to jack off over guys bangin'. Isn’t that right, Milkovich?”

Anderson frowned, particularly at the word ‘voyeur’ clearly thinking it was just someone who liked to travel. Or did, until Ian expanded, and then he looked some mixture of panicked and angry, “I don’t! I wouldn’t! My mamma raised me right, I ain’t faggot like either’a you pair!”

That word made Mickey’s hackles raise, and he took a step forward, staring at him darkly, “what the fuck did you call us?” 

He couldn’t take another step though, as Ian put his hand out to block Mickey’s chest and then stepped in front of him, “but who are they gonna believe, huh? Fresh-faced Private like you, who can barely hold his gun right, or someone who’s been here for years?”

“They’ll know I wouldn’t say nothin' like that lightly! Who would! Don’t matter who I am!”

“Do they now? Cause I don’t think they actually know you from Jack, Soldier. You’re just a blip on the front line, you think they can keep up with all you fish flushin’ through? Half of you won’t even last the first six weeks over there.”

Mickey glanced at Ian as he said that, wondering for a moment if that was why he so readily jumped into bed with him, with any Private that gave him the right attention.  _ Just a blip on the front line.  _ But then he returned to look at Anderson. Anderson who had stuck through the abuse with a look of defiance, clearly the Drill Sergeant had been doing his job. “Maybe they’ll believe me about him at least, he means as little as I do.”

“But then, how would  _ you  _ know? Anyway, this is comin’ back on you, too, kid. Think about that, how would your mamma feel about you getting discharged, failing your country over a silly thing like that. Ain’t gonna leave you with a lot of prospects, is it?”

“They ain’t gonna give me no discharge over tellin’ someone I caught you fudgepackers together!”

“How about I break your fuckin’ jaw and then you won’t be tellin’ nobody nothin’,” Mickey said, pressing forward again, heard enough of those fucking slurs.

“You’re the one who told me to come here in the first place, Milkovich!”

Mickey shrank in the face of that, had hoped Ian wouldn’t find out but it hadn’t lasted long. He kept up the assault anyway because he’d bypassed flight and gone to fight, “yeah? Why don’t you fuck off at my order, too, then. And keep your mouth shut, or I’ll tell your buck-toothed, sister-bangin backwards hillbilly family that you jerk off to a picture of your fuckin’ cousin every night.”

“She ain’t my cousin! She’s my second cousin!”

“You told me she was your uncle’s kid, Jackass.”

“Yeah but she’s his second kid!”

“That’s the same fuckin’ thing you incestuous dumbshit!”

Anderson’s eyes rounded and he paled when that dawned on him.

“Get the _fuck_ out,” Ian’s voice was too terrifying then to question, and Anderson scarpered, it was only then that Mickey dared look at him and saw the pure unadulterated rage, taking him over. Shit. That was bad. 

“I can explain,” he said, with a sort of desperation, though he couldn’t be sure that he could actually explain it adequately enough to keep Ian from killing him.

“You, too,” he said, staring at him intently, but Mickey didn’t want to leave, not before he fixed this. Not without some degree of certainty over what would happen next. 

“You gonna get me thrown out?” he asked, at least hoping something could come from this.

“I ain’t gonna do shit,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose and pacing.

He rubbed his nose, and then shifted his weight, looked away and back, cleared his throat. “It’s just… it’s not what it seems, okay?” 

“Really? Cause it seems like you were tryna set me up. But maybe you were just hoping for a threesome and your gaydar is shot to shit.”

“I wasn’t tryna set you up, man, I was tryna set  _ me  _ up.”

There’s a brief pause before he says, “then you hit on someone straight or you find someone else wantin' out. _Fuck_. I worked hard to get here. Unlike you, I wanna do this. You know, when I signed up, you couldn’t even enlist with a record. Now they give any petty criminal who thinks this is an easy way out a gun and a uniform. You shoulda done the fuckin’ time if you didn’t wanna be here.”

Mickey swallowed and glared away at the wall, “I was fuckin’ lookin’ for a straight guy. And then we hooked up and…” he trailed off and shrugged, cursed under his breath, and then shook his head and started to walk out. Because he couldn’t say it. And hated himself for not being able to say it. 

“We hooked up and you thought, what? Great? Get my dick sucked while sliding out of here and nevermind the bitch that’s gonna suffer for it, too?” Mickey froze in the doorway, jumped slightly when he heard Ian’s fist slam painfully against the table. “I know we weren’t chocolates and roses but that’s fuckin’ cold as shit.”

“Fuck you, man,” Mickey said, spinning on his heel to face him, “That ain’t what happened. Don’t pretend you know me. Oh, but hey, wait, you think I’m just some fuckin’ criminal tryna get an easy ride, right? So maybe you do got me all figured out. That’s all you need to know.”

“What I think is your ass ain’t worth this shit, regardless of how tight it is. Take your cherry elsewhere, it’s a bit sour for my taste.”

Mickey flipped him off, “yeah, whatever, was on my way out anyway.”


End file.
